MOP vs. Cisco, was Re: [HECnet] _PROVISIONAL_ map of HECnet, courtesy largely of Brian H.

[Paul_Koning at Dell.com]

On Jan 9, 2013, at 12:50 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 01/09/2013 10:49 AM, Brian Hechinger wrote:
  ...and like this from NCP under VMS:

NCP> connect node gw physical address <MAC address> via <circuit-name>

  Note that the MAC address must have its octets delimited by colons
under Linux, and hyphens under VMS.

NCP>connect node gw physical address AA-00-04-00-01-F4 via ISA-0
Console connected (press CTRL/D when finished)


User Access Verification

Username:
NCP>

Uhhh...HOLY CRAP!   That works from outside my network?!   Is it working
because you specified the circuit which gave it a path, or because it
gleaned the DECnet area/node address from the (changed-by-DECnet) MAC
address?   I'm guessing the latter. (Peter?)

It works on any LAN, including across bridges, so the various Internet based bridges we have make this work over some distance.   The communication is via MOP remote console packets, which are not routed (just like LAT).   The addressing is direct to the MAC address, whatever that happens to be at the destination.   If the node you want to talk to supports MAC address aliases, the original address might work, but in any case the DECnet style Ethernet address will work.

	paul